The e-book explores everything from coding, debugging, gaming and developing for the web, to providing links to prestigious Computer Science communities that schools and teachers can join, and links to our own Microsoft Computer Science resources.

With the new Computer Science curriculum being implemented in September, there is a huge demand from teachers for information and practical guidance on delivering Computer Science.

Along with the tooling delivered in Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC, developers can now get everything they need to start building and testing Windows Phone apps and universal Windows apps. Even better, Windows Phone Store is also starting to accept app submissions and to enable app linking today – enabling you to bring the universal Windows app experience to your beta users and consumers.

To update your Windows Phone 8 device to 8.1, you will need to download the app and opt into the program (the process is outlined on the Windows Phone Dev Center); if your phone is already opted in, then all you should need to do is head over to your phone’s settings and check for an update.

Windows Phone Preview for Developers program

The Windows Phone Preview program gives our developer community access to prerelease builds of Windows Phone updates before the operating system updates are made generally available to consumers.

Participation requirements for the Windows Phone Preview program is simple, you must meet one of the following three criteria:

BAFTA, in partnership with Burberry, is looking for the next generation of British talent in Film, TV and Games. If you're working professionally in these industries and making a name for yourself in your chosen field – or you know someone who is – then we want to hear from you.

Up to 20 talented newcomers will be selected by a stellar industry Jury to take part in this year-long mentoring and guidance programme, kicking off with an evening reception at Burberry's Regent Street flagship store and a day of in-depth career guidance and mentoring from leading industry figures at BAFTA headquarters. BAFTA supports each Breakthrough Brit by working with them to tailor a programme of support, mentoring and career development. Successful Breakthrough Brits will also receive non-voting membership of BAFTA for a year, giving them free access to BAFTA events and screenings and to our members' space at 195 Piccadilly.

Applicants in Games

You will have been involved with a piece of work that has been, or will be, released or published in the UK between August 2013 and August 2014. In addition, the project on which you undertook your first lead or impactful role will be in a playable state by August 2014. One project might fulfil both of these criteria.

In other words, we would like to hear from people who have made a real difference to the successful completion of a project and who are making a name for themselves in games. This may include more junior team members who have demonstrated exceptional promise and gone above and beyond to drive the success of a project.

Do you know a Breakthrough Brit?

Breakthrough Brits aims to champion creative individuals who may not be household names in their field yet but have already shown incredible promise. Applications are now open for the initiative and if someone you know is working professionally in the Film, Television or Games industry and making a name for themselves in their field then please encourage them to apply. You can also email breakthrough@bafta.org with the name and contact details of your suggested candidates and we will get in touch with them directly. All candidates must fully complete the application form in order to be considered for the initiative.

“If I am honest I normally skim read emails to this account, even those from Microsoft (shock horror!) The email regarding the MVA facility however really caught my eye. It is really nice to not only gain more knowledge on the latest Microsoft technologies but also have something material to show for it. Very much looking forward to completing the outstanding modules and work towards gaining more usable knowledge in the work place.” – John, IT Pro

Microsoft Virtual Academy is a online MOOC platform that offers technical training resources available on demand and at NO cost to Students, Educators, Developers and IT Professionals around the world.

So take part and join a community of Developers and IT Professionals who want to take control of their careers and go above and beyond to become a workplace hero, and a hero of their career

You there, IT extraordinaire! Seems like you know your stuff, but do you have what it takes to become a true champion? Register for the Microsoft Virtual Academy, take on the MVA Heroes and your endeavours will be generously rewarded: http://aka.ms/mvaherofb

Are you the leader of the pack, a knight in shining armour? We think you should be. That’s why we’re inviting you to take up arms and become a true MVA Hero! Complete the training to earn your stripes, and some cool superhero swag: http://aka.ms/mvaherofb

Microsoft® Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) is a Microsoft-supported, stand-alone solution for the information technology (IT) pro or solution provider who wants to convert virtual machines and disks from VMware hosts to Hyper-V® hosts and Windows Azure™.

MVMC can be deployed with minimal dependencies. Because MVMC provides native support for Windows PowerShell®, it enables scripting and integration with data center automation workflows such as those authored and run within Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2. It can also be invoked through the Windows PowerShell® command-line interface. The solution is simple to download, install, and use. In addition to the Windows PowerShell capability, MVMC provides a wizard-driven GUI to facilitate virtual machine conversion.

New Features in MVMC 2.0

MVMC 2.0 release of MVMC includes the following new features:

Converts virtual disks that are attached to a VMware virtual machine to virtual hard disks (VHDs) that can be uploaded to Windows Azure.

Has a wizard-driven GUI, which simplifies performing virtual machine conversions.

Uninstalls VMware Tools before online conversion (online only) to provide a clean way to migrate VMware-based virtual machines to Hyper-V.

Important MVMC takes a snapshot of the virtual machine that you are converting before you uninstall VMware Tools, and then shuts down the source machine to preserve state during conversion. The virtual machine is restored to its previous state after the source disks that are attached to the virtual machine are successfully copied to the machine where the conversion process is run. At that point, the source machine in VMware can be turned on, if required. Important MVMC does not uninstall VMware Tools in an offline conversion. Instead, it disables VMware services, drivers, and programs only for Windows Server guest operating systems. For file conversions with Linux guest operating systems, VMware Tools are not disabled or uninstalled. We highly recommend that you manually uninstall VMware Tools when you convert an offline virtual machine.

Kraig began updating the first edition exactly a year ago, and when you examine the new ebook’s Table of Contents you’ll quickly see how much work he has done to share his deep understanding of Windows Store app building. Even in the simplest sense—new pages added to this edition: 478—Kraig’s effort and generosity are impressive. Thank you, Kraig, and enjoy, app builders! The following excerpt from Kraig’s introduction to the ebook shares our goals for the title:

Introduction from the Author

Work on this second edition began almost as soon as the first edition was released. (I’d make a quip about the ink not being dry, but that analogy doesn’t work for an ebook!) When Windows 8 became generally available in the fall of 2012, work on Windows 8.1 was already well underway: the engineering team had a long list of improvements they wanted to make along with features that they weren’t able to complete for Windows 8. And in the very short span of one year, Windows 8.1 was itself ready to ship.

At first I thought writing this second edition would be primarily a matter of making small updates to each chapter and perhaps adding some pages here and there on a handful of new features. But as I got deeper into the updated platform, I was amazed at just how much the API surface area had expanded! Windows 8.1 introduces a number of additional controls, an HTML webview element, a stronger HTTP API, content indexing, deeper OneDrive support, better media capabilities, more tiles sizes (small and large), more flexible secondary tile, access to many kinds of peripheral devices, and more options for working with the Windows Store, like consumable in-app purchases. And clearly, this is a very short list of distinct Windows 8.1 features that doesn’t include the many smaller changes to the API. (A fuller list can be found on Windows 8.1: New APIs and features for developers.)

Furthermore, even as I was wrapping up the first edition of this book, I already had a long list of topics I wanted to explore in more depth. I wrote a number of those pieces for my blog, with the intention of including them in this second edition. A prime example is Appendix A, “Demystifying Promises.”

All in all, then, what was already a very comprehensive book in the first edition has become even more so in the second! Fortunately, with this being an ebook, neither you nor I need feel guilty about matters of deforestation. We can simply enjoy the process of learning about and writing Windows Store Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And what about Windows Phone 8.1? I’m glad you asked, because much of this book is completely applicable to that platform. Yes, that’s right: Windows Phone 8.1 supports writing apps in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, just like Windows 8.1, meaning that you have the same flexibility of implementation languages on both. However, the decision to support JavaScript apps on Windows Phone 8.1 came very late in the production of this book, so I’m only able to make a few notes here and there for Phone - specific concerns. I encourage you to follow the Building Apps for Windows blog, where we’ll be posting more about the increasingly unified experience of Windows and Windows Phone.

Who should read this book?

This book is about writing Windows Store apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Our primary focus will be on applying these web technologies within the Windows platform, where there are unique considerations, and not on exploring the details of those web technologies themselves. For the most part, I'm assuming that you're already at least somewhat conversant with these standards. We will cover some of the more salient areas like the CSS grid, which is central to app layout, but otherwise I trust that you're capable of finding appropriate references for most everything else. For Java Script specifically, I can recommend Rey Bango’s Required JavaScript Reading list, though I hope you’ll spend more time reading this book than others!

I'm also assuming that your interest in Windows has at least two basic motivations. One, you probably want to come up to speed as quickly as you can, perhaps to carve out a foothold in the Windows Store sooner rather than later. Toward that end, Chapter 2, “Quickstart,” gives you an immediate experience with the tools, APIs, and some core aspects of app development and the platform. On the other hand, you probably also want to make the best app you can, one that performs really well and that takes advantage of the full extent of the platform. Toward this end, I've also endeavoured to make this book comprehensive, helping you at least be aware of what's possible and where optimizations can be made.

Let me make it clear, though, that my focus in this book is the Windows platform. I won’t talk much about third-party libraries, architectural considerations for app design, and development strategies and best practices. Some of these will come up from time to time, but mostly in passing. Nevertheless, many insights have come from working directly with real-world developers on their real-world apps. As part of the Windows Ecosystem team, myself and my teammates have been on the front lines bringing those first apps to the Windows Store. This has involved writing bits of code for those apps and investigating bugs, along with conducting design, code, and performance reviews with members of the Windows engineering team. As such, one of my goals with this book is to make that deep understanding available to many more developers, including you!

Live online training courses

I always get the following the following question from lots of students ‘I want to start to learn Unity where should I start?’

Well if Unity isn't part of your course then the options are to grab a book, jump on you tube or watch a interactive learning series.

Well Unity know this is a problem so they have set up a live training series which take place online with Unity experts you can query live? . Unity hold a number of Live seminar style sessions where tutor will take you through a particular project, topic, or number of topics.

Well we have a number of supported Advertising SDK which are listed at our partner services portal for Windows 8 and Windows Phone development at http://services.windowsstore.com/.

The Partner portal has links to partners providing the following services for both Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

Advertising

Analytics

Controls & Frameworks

Cross Platform Tools

Database

Design

Developer Tools

Gaming Middleware

Geolocation

Graphics

Has Offer

Media Services

Networking

Payments

Performance

Push Notifications

Social Plugins

Storage

Testing

UI Controls

User Management

Here are the available Advertising SDK which support Windows 8 and Windows Phone

Scoreoid

Scoreoid is a real-time marketing platform that powers engagement and monetization. Scoreoid enables brands, studios, publishers and app developers to interact and engage with their users in real-time. "We help you touch your users".

AdRotator

AdRotator is a multi-platform Ad Rotating solution that integrates multiple AdProviders in to a single control and can manage rotation of those ads based on the developers configuration. It also features fallback capabilities to always ensure the app/game always has ads to show. We also support remote configuration so the developer can alter their Ad Configuration on the fly without re-deploying their app/game or show their own ad to pass in formation to clients.

MediaBrix powers the industry's leading advertising and services platform for social and mobile games.

PreApps

PreApps.com is the leading platform introducing new mobile apps to user and the marketplace prior to release. Our vision is to build an ecosystem, which connects app developers with app users prior to release to in turn create better quality, more successful apps. Our collaborative process has demonstrated to increase app downloads, enhance app ranking, and overall app quality

FREE CASH TO ADVERTISE YOUR APP! Click Learn More. LeadBolt is an award winning mobile app discovery, advertising and monetization network focused on delivering innovative solutions for Windows Phone 8, iOS and Android app developers and now for Windows Store apps. Through the largest range of traditional and high-performance ad formats, LeadBolt delivers industry leading results to developers wanting to have their app discovered by users and increase their downloads.

InMobi is the largest independent global mobile ad network and monetization platform with a global reach of over 691 million consumers across 165 countries on our network, we can help you reach your mobile audience anywhere in the world. Our highly skilled mobile experts plus local account managers will be on hand to help you book and optimize your campaign.

Microsoft Advertising SDK for Windows Store apps

Whether you're developing in HTML or XAML, the Microsoft Advertising SDK has made it easy to insert ads into your Windows 8 apps. With a few lines of code, you can quickly get ads being served in your app by following the simple steps outlined in our SDK documentation.

AdDuplex

AdDuplex is a cross-promotion network for Windows Store and Windows Phone apps empowering developers to advertise their apps for free by helping each other.

Ads Plug-in for Unity3d

At the Unity camps lots of people are interested in Ad services which provided by a dedicated Unity3d plugin.

In the scenes where you want AdRotator displayed, Ad the “AdRotatorManagement” manager game object to your scene (needs to be the top most item in the hierarchy), after installing the asset, this will appear in the game object create menu.

Use the inspector to configure how you want AdRotator to display in your scene.

Edit the AdRotator configuration files in the Assets / AdRotator folder (there is one for WinPhone and one for Win8 at the moment but we may unify that later) – Note don’t touch any of the other files

When your ready, deploy your game to a Windows 8 C#/XAML or Windows Phone 8 project (these are the only two supported options at the moment)

Lastly, open your generated solution and ad the V2 AdRotator beta to your project through NuGet and any other Ad Providers you wish to use.

**Note, check the readme that comes with the AdRotator NuGet package if you intend to use PubCentre, there is an additional step to pass the reference for PubCentre directly to AdRotator which will be needed.